Hope
by fallfromreality
Summary: She'd never thought she'd live to see it, to see Sandstorm get taken down, and Shepard pulled from her throne. Now she almost wished she hadn't. Because empires never fall quietly, and she'd grown tired of the blood shed. -I recommend reading the Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot, a sort of inspiration for this one-


So this little monster had been living in my head for the last week, and I finally had to put it down on paper. Its been a rough few weeks for me, so I'm sorry if this one is a little dark. Sadly, there won't be any more to this story, it's a one-shot! After all I can't really afford to start another story, and I do promise to churn out a few more chapter of each of my respective stories for you guys!

Hope you all enjoy this! I'm sorry again that its so dark. But sometimes that's just what the muse wants.

Anyways, as always so much love to all of you for your continued support and affection for my stories!

Love,

Fallen

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Up till the very end she'd had hope. Hope that she might walk out of this and get the chance to be free from it all. Have the chance to get to know her brother, and build a family. A chance to be a person instead of a tool.

Amazing how even in the bleakest circumstances humans can find hope, isn't it?

She couldn't stop the bitter laugh that came out of her, hitting the empty walls and creating a haunting echo as it bounced back to her ears. Distantly she could hear the sounds of the compound being breached, gunfire, and explosions a far too familiar symphony to her ears.

She wanted to hate how the sound almost settled her. But then again, violence had been a part of her from the very beginning.

Why wouldn't she be comforted by it? It's all she's ever known.

Maybe that's why she never noticed the weight of a gun in her hand until it'd gone off. Because she'd been forged to be a weapon. Like recognized like.

She'd almost lost count of the shots she'd taken today. How many time's she pulled the trigger before she ended up here. In this room with the last of her family.

But in truth, she'd never be able to forget, they'd trained her to count her bullets. To know how many she had left before she'd here an empty click when she pulled the trigger.

So she knew she had twelve bullets left in her gun, and another clip in her back pocket. But from her position on the floor, Roman laying in her lap, she wouldn't be able to reach it. So she'd have to make each bullet count.

Because she knew even as they took their dying breaths Sandstorms operatives would come for her. Come for them.

She let her eyes wonder to Shepard, bruises forming across her face, even as her brain matter clung to the wall behind her. The violent spatter of blood and gore the most alive thing about her. Yet somehow those empty eyes, seemed to sear into her soul, a million questions posed in them like bubbles in glass. She'd fought till the bitter end but Jane, Jane had been the one to come out on top. Though that trigger squeeze seemed hollow to her now.

No sense of victory or righteousness clung to her in those final moments. Instead just doubt and despair clung to her like a wraith.

But she'd done the right thing? Hadn't she?

Clearly, Jane had never known right from wrong. So how was she to ever know?

Like a good tool she'd allowed them to point her in this direction and guide her hand until the deed was done.

She carded her free hand through Romans hair, her brother, the last piece of her family left. She had to protect him now. Keep him safe as their world crumbled around them.

After she'd shot their mother, she'd expected anger and outrage, but he'd just stared at her. Shepard had wounded him in the beginning, vengeance and punishment all in one.

That's how they found themselves here, him in her lap, and her ready and waiting to kill for him again. Because she couldn't abandon him, wouldn't allow them to have him. They belonged together, they'd been born into this world to make ashes of it together. So they would.

Her fingers slipped into something wet and warm, but she ignored it. Hand tightening on her gun as she whispered to Roman that she would keep him safe as the door burst open. Three sandstorm operatives burst into the room.

Jane used those vital seconds it took them to orient to their surroundings against them.

One bullet right into the first one's head. She didn't watch him slowly slither to the ground. She had no pity for the enemy.

The second went into the next one's neck, his blood spraying across the thirds face blinding him for a crucial second.

The third and four bullets went respectfully into the third man's shoulder and chest.

She kept her eyes trained on the doors, now propped open by their bodies, but she kept carding her hand through Roman's hair. He liked that. She remembered that. She did. Back in the orphanage, where they first learned to be monsters, she'd sneak into his room to comfort him like this. Humming the same lullaby she'd begun to sing softly, ever so softly to him. Just for him.

Her shirt felt sticky beneath where his head lay, but she gave it no thought.

They were walking out of this together.

Or not at all.

The violence had begun to quiet across the compound, and she prayed it meant that the team had been successful. She no longer called them her team. She hadn't belonged to them in months. Maybe she hadn't ever really. She'd just found a way to slip inside their defenses before they saw beneath her mask.

They after-all were humans, good ones at that, once they realized what had been lurking in their midst, she couldn't blame them for turning on her. She'd read enough books to understand what humanity did to monsters.

She heard footsteps echoing down the hall nearing their haven, and she refocused. Hand tightening on her gun, as her fingers stilled in Romans hair.

"I won't let them have you," She whispered to him. Though her heart pounded harder in her chest, and sweat beaded at her temple she didn't feel afraid. She knew that she would die before she allowed him to be taken away. Before she allowed herself to become what she'd been with the CIA. A fate she knew any remnants of sandstorm would gladly give her.

She heard voices, but she couldn't discern what they were saying. She tried to focus, but all she could hear were enemies whispering, and the blood pounding in her ears.

She could have sworn Roman whispered something to her, but it was lost in the sea of sound. The thought that she'd missed it made her stomach clench.

She'd failed him in so many ways.

All she wanted was to do right by him just this once.

The footsteps were drawing nearer now, the voices getting louder, they sounded worried. But that didn't tell her anything. Sandstorm would be worried about Shepard, about Roman, but no one would be worried about her.

Eight bullets.

She had eight bullets in her gun, but one of those belonged to her.

No-no she would need two, one for her and one for Roman. Her hand again carded through his hair, ignoring the catch where her fingers caught in sodden hair.

She only needed to buy herself enough time to end it. Six bullets, she could make six bullets count. She had before. Any second the approaching party would reach the door, she allowed herself one deep breath to find her center. One moment to catch her breath.

But she felt her heart sink as the party finally entered her sight line. It felt like a small army stood in the door. Six bullets wouldn't win her freedom here.

Still she didn't allow her hands to shake as she prepared to pull the trigger. The first of them noticed her and she prepared for the bite of a bullet. But instead they lowered their gun, as the rest of them focused in on her.

"Stand down," The voice so familiar, and yet so alien called to the others, before refocusing on her, "Jane, are you hurt?"

Her hands tightened on the gun, ignoring the sting as she cut off blood flow to her fingers, "Get out," She whispered, but it echoed across the room like a gun shot.

"Jane, it's done, sandstorms defeated." The man told her hands up as if to calm her, to steady her, instead they only made her angry.

"Just leave us alone," She shot back, voice raising. Her eyes whisked over the familiar FBI patches, and she allowed herself to recognize the team she'd once called family. But they weren't family any longer, and she only wanted to lay here with her brother. She didn't want to go back with them. She didn't want to feel the cold kiss of steel around her wrists or have to watch again as they allowed the devil to take her in his hands.

The man-Kurt, gestured, and the majority of the group broke away, continuing their sweep for stragglers leaving only the three faces she'd recognized.

Kurt took a step toward them, and Jane immediately refocused herself and the gun in his direction, "Stop, don't come any closer."

"Jane, we just want to make sure you're okay, and check on Roman, is he alright?" The other man, Reade, her mind supplied, assured her. His hands up in the same placating manner as Kurts.

She couldn't help the laugh that cut its way out of her throat, "You want to make sure I'm okay? You want to check on Roman? I'm not an idiot, you've never cared about that before."

Her hand left romans hair to pull his body closer to her chest, "I'm keeping him safe, I don't need your help, so just leave," her voice broke but she forced herself to finish, "Please."

Roman's head lulled when she pulled him close, and her hand journeyed to cradle his neck, fingers splaying across the back of his head. She ignored the empty space she found there, and the slick sticky substance that recoated her hands as they clasped his neck.

She saw the team exchange a glance, worry, and sadness seemed to live in their looks, and again it only made her angry.

"Jane, you can't keep him safe here, let us take you somewhere where you can protect him," Kurt told her, his voice low and soothing, like he were talking to the baby he'd hold soon.

Her hand had started to shake, though she didn't know why, and something wet slide down her cheeks, "I don't need _your_ help, any of you, Roman needs me not you. So get out before I make you."

She no longer cared about them, they were the enemy right now, and she knew what she had to do to those she'd labeled enemies. Days ago she wouldn't have been able to do it. But they'd finally broken her. Sending her in like an assassin to kill her family, and burn their legacy to the ground. When she squeezed that trigger and painted the walls with her mother's brains she'd shattered.

Only Roman kept her here.

"Is no one going to say it?" The woman, the worst of them, Zapata, finally spoke. Her voice angry, as always, but Jane detected something like sorrow in the current beneath the ever present anger.

Suddenly the room seemed heavy as all three of them looked at each other and then back to Jane.

Again Zapata spoke, as if sensing the men wouldn't, "Fine, I'll be the one to say it since no one else is going to. Jane, Roman's dead, you know that right? I'm sorry I truly am, but his corpse doesn't need your protection, okay? You need to come with us and let them take him."

Jane couldn't process the words, "He's not dead," She told them, even as more wetness slunk down her cheeks, and her vision blurred until she could barely make out their faces, "He's not."

Though she didn't know if she was reassuring herself or them.

"Yes Jane, he is, now please let us help you," Zapata whispered, taking a step towards them, and getting a gun pointed at her as a reward for her effort. Though at this point it shook so badly Jane didn't trust herself to hit her target.

"No," she whispered to herself, a litany of words streaming out of her mouth as she looked down at her brother. Her beautiful brother.

She looked at him, the way his eyes stared blankly at her chest, unblinking. A perfect dot occupying the space between his eyes, and the cavernous hole in the back of his head. Taking in the red that stained her white shirt, and the blinding red coating her head.

It was always blood.

She couldn't escape it anymore.

She blinked, unable to take her gaze away from his face, "Please," she whispered, "Roman, please," she begged him not to leave her. Begged him to look at her, to say something like he had early…she'd missed it missed his whispers.

"Don't leave me," She begged, "You're all I have left."

But he said nothing, just lay there, in her lap motionless as he had since she first pulled him to her. She'd failed him again and again and again.

"Jane, let us help you," She wasn't even sure who spoke anymore. It didn't matter. Her world lay dead before her. The last flicker of hope died in her chest, and she realized there would be no happy ever after for her. She'd never be free. She'd never get to live her life the way she wanted. Never get the chance to show Roman that she cared, that she loved him, and had never wanted to betray him. Never get the chance to earn the title sister. Never get the chance to meet a man who would love her. Never get to have a child, who would be loved as much by her brother as by herself.

The only thing she'd been fighting for…and now it was gone.

"Jane don't do this, put the gun down, please," This time she knew it was Kurt and he sounded scared. Reade and Zapata chimed in too but all she heard was fear.

She felt the cold press of steel against her temple. But she couldn't remember bringing the gun to her head.

She heard more words, more begging but all she could focus on was his face. Those empty green eyes. With her free hand she turned his face so that she could stare into his eyes.

"I'm sorry," She whispered and then she pulled the trigger.


End file.
